The United States has not had a men's track world championship title since Taylor Phinney last raced the individual pursuit, but next week in Paris, this could change as Bobby Lea quietly sets his sights on the rainbow jersey, not in the omnium, but the pursuit.
It is a bit odd that Lea made the choice to race the individual pursuit instead of the omnium, considering he placed third in two of the Track World Cup omnium events this season, and would have won the overall if he had just gone to the final round and placed top 10. But a scheduling overlap between the two events, and a focus on the 2016 Summer Olympic Games omnium in Rio led to his decision to go for a medal in the pursuit.
"It was a really tough decision. The pursuit happens on day two of the omnium," Lea told Cyclingnews. "This whole winter, the plan was to do the pursuit and the omnium. When the schedule came out - there were some hard choices to make. The benefit of the two big rides in Guadalajara and London is it gives us some leeway in terms of Olympics points, so I opted to go for the pursuit instead."
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For more than a decade, Lea has been a solid member of the US Olympic track cycling team: he raced the points race in both Athens and Beijing before switching to the omnium when the points race was eliminated from the program ahead of London. In 2012, he was 12th overall in the event at the Olympics. But over the past season, something changed for the 31-year-old: he gave up racing for his road team in the summer, and found that little bit extra needed to make it to a world-class podium.
"A series of things came together in just the right way, but I think the real catalyst was stepping back from the domestic road scene and running a solo program this year. Back in 2013, [coach] Brian Walton and I discussed ideas on how to approach the run up to Rio. The idea came up to just try something completely new, discard the whole domestic pro scene entirely and do a team of one. I run my own program, pick my own races, and can plan my fitness around what works best for me, not what works best for a road team."
Lea gained financial support from long-time sponsor Pure Energy Cycling, a shop in New Jersey which just launched an online retail site called Custom Velo. "From there it was off to the races. I set off on this great experiment. I think the big part of it has been pulling out all non-essential elements of a race season. I ended up staying home more, training more. With less days lost to travel, there's more days to train. Maybe there's also an element of 'happiness watts'. Just from being in control, doing my own program. That's been a really good thing for me."
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